This week on a special episode of the HR Happy Hour Show, host Steve Boese reports from Oracle HCM World 2017 in Boston, and interviews two Oracle customers about their HR and HR tech transformations. First, Chris Kiessling from Royal Farms, a midsize chain of convenience stores in the Mid-Atlantic region talked about the challenges and opportunities that come with modernizing HR systems and processes to support their high-volume, high-turnover business, and set up the company for future growth. Then, Steve was joined by Yamini Namasivayam of SRI International, a high-tech firm that operates in a number of specialty domains. SRI too was faced with modernizing an aging set of HR tools - with the fundamental goal of turning HR technology into strategic and business advantage and driving revenue growth.

Both these stories were interesting as they help show how HR and HRIT leaders in the real world are generating value from investments in HR technology.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or by using the widget player below:

Thanks to Chris and Yamini for joining the show and thanks to Oracle for having the HR Happy Hour Show at HCM World.

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve and Trish welcome Dave Ulrich, author of the recent Victory Through Organization, over 30 other books, Professor at the University of Michigan, one of the foremost experts on Human Resources, and known as the "Father of modern Human Resources" back to the Happy Hour to talk Human Resources, creating organizational capability, and how Human Resources can continue to evolve to support the organization.

Dave talked about the new book, the key can be summed up in the very first sentences of the book - "HR is not about HR. HR begins and ends with the business." From that launch point, we talked about Dave's research (with data from over 30,000 respondents), the importance of HR as the enabler and driver of organizational capability, why the famous McKinsey "War for Talent" is only partially relevant to HR leaders, and some of the ways HR leaders need to adapt and grow in order to support the creation of organizational capability.

We also talked about NBA basketball, the Oscars, and the Spice Girls, (yes, and every one of those topics tied back to the overall theme of the show, that organizational factors have a far greater impact on business performance than do individual factors).

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or by using the widget player below:

Dave's most recent book, Victory Through Organization, is available here.

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve Boese and special guest co-host Madeline Laurano recorded a special Happy Hour Show live from Ultimate Connections 2017 in Las Vegas. They were joined by Ultimate Software's Cecile Alper-Leroux and Armen Berjikly to talk about the need to listen to the 'Voice of the Employee', the importance of technology to help HR leaders understand data, (especially unstructured data), and how modern technology solutions can help HR leaders move from just listening, to understanding, and finally, to taking actions, (and recommending actions).

The theme for the Ultimate Connections Conference was 'Elevate' - and the key idea to how HR and business leaders can elevate the employee experience by listening to their needs more closely, applying new technologies that can help analyze data from employee surveys and other disparate sources for things like sentiment and tone, and finally using those insights to take actions that can improve the organization and the individual employee experience.

Additionally, Steve re-visited Schoolhouse Rock, his old fashioned method of accessing data from a database, the happiest countries in the world, and Cecile cemented her position as all-time leading HR Happy Hour guest.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or using the widget player below, (email and RSS subscribers click through)

This was a fun and interesting show - thanks to Madeline, and to Cecile and Armen and everyone at Ultimate for hosting the show.

Subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, and all the podcast apps by searching for 'HR Happy Hour'.

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, recorded live at Benefitfocus One Place 2017 Conference, Steve Boese is joined by Shan Fowler of Benefitfocus and Chris Condeluci of CC Law & Policy to talk repeal, replace, reconciliation, and all things ACA in 2017.

Any HR and Benefits leader who is following the news surrounding the potential repeal and replacement of the ACA is no doubt facing questions and concerns about what is really happening in Washington, what these potential changes mean for employers, and how best to keep informed and prepared for the future of the ACA and whatever may come next.

Chris and Shan talked about what is most likely to happen with the current legislation under consideration, a timeline of what seems likely to occur in the next several weeks, and what might happen in the balance of 2017.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or using the widget player below (Email and RSS subscribers click through)

This is an important, fast-moving, complex, and fascinating topic, and one that all HR and Benefits leaders need to have top of mind as events unfold. Listen to the show to learn more about what is happening, and how you can stay ready for what might be coming soon.

And Steve gives a solid 'Schoolhouse Rock' reset along the way.Thanks to Shan and Chris as well as everyone on the Benefitfocus team for hosting this special episode of the HR Happy Hour Show.

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, we are joined by Josh Bersin, of Bersin by Deloitte, a leading consulting, research and advisory company to talk about some of the key findings and insights from the just released Deloitte 2017 Human Capital Trends Report.

This annual report, now in its fifth year, looks at the key challenges, trends, and opportunities for HR and business leaders and serves as an educational resource and guide for HR leaders to help them think about their human capital challenges and how they might respond to these challenges.

This year's report shared 10 Key Human Capital Trends and on the show, Josh talked about three of them in more detail - The Organization of the Future, The Employee Experience, and Diversity and Inclusion - all major themes of the report and ones that many organizations are tackling in 2017. Josh shared some insights from the research, (over 10,000 respondents), as well as from case studies, inteviews and additional research in these areas. Finally, Josh shared his recommendations for HR leaders on how to best utilize the information in the Global Human Capital Trends Report and how it can help guide conversations, prioritization, and HR strategy.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or by using the widget player below, (email and RSS subscribers click through)

This was a fun and interesting show, thanks to Josh for taking the time to join us.

Get the Deloitte 2017 Global Human Capital Trends Reporthere - highly recommend it to help understand and plan for the challenges ahead.

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, Stitcher Radio and all the podcast apps - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to subscribe and never miss a show.